Tear Apart, Stitch Together
by Thinker6
Summary: Taylor Hebert triggers with Shatterbird's power. Her hero, Alexandria, is called in to face the threat. Can Alexandria help Taylor find redemption? And can Brockton Bay survive the new Slaughterhouse Nine?
1. Taylor 1

Trapped.

I was trapped, alone, left to rot. No one cared that I was gone. I was going to die.

If that was all then maybe I could be okay with it. Letting go, letting it all finally end. But I couldn't give up. I had to live for Dad's sake. He was the only one who cared about me, the only one who would look for me, the only one who would find me. I imagined what he would see when he opened the locker door, when he saw my rotting corpse inside. He would go mad. Not knowing who did it to me, not knowing why, never knowing _anything_ because I was a miserable lying _coward_ who couldn't get up the courage to give him a single hint of what they did to me every day in school.

I couldn't leave him in the dark like this. I had to tell him everything.

Something inside of me was growing. Welling up inside me, expanding and richocheting through the air, out of the locker, out of the hallways, out of the school, out into the open air of the city...

I did the only thing I could. I screamed.

...  
...

I don't know where I was when she found me. Somewhere over the Atlantic, hours after I had flown out to sea. Perched on my ramshackle construct of shattered glass, staring at the waves and the featureless blue horizon around me. Anything to get away from the school, from the city, from civilization. To get away from what I had done. If I let myself think about it for a single moment then I wouldn't be able to stop myself from _feeling_. If let myself feel then I wouldn't be able to stop myself from, from...

That was when I saw her. A small black dot on the horizon, growing with each second. As she came closer I recognized my childhood idol, the founder of the Protectorate. _Alexandria_.

I had been so stupid. _Of course_ they would come for me. They must know exactly what I did. If they hadn't figured it out immediately then my flight out of town was a dead giveaway. And _of course_ they would send the Triumvirate after me. They were the greatest heroes, reserved for catching the worst villains. The irredeemable, the monsters, the mass murderers. I didn't have any illlusions about what category I fell into.

Alexandria drew closer and matched my pace, leaving a fifty feet of empty air between us. She spoke, her voice carrying over the wind.

"Taylor Hebert. We need to talk."

It was surreal, having the attention of one of the most powerful heroes on the planet. If I was still an innocent kid I would have been starry eyed and in awe. Now I was exhausted, physically and emotionally. I just wanted it all to be over.

"Um. Alexandria. Um. Are you here to arrest me? Are you here to...to take me to the Birdcage?"

"No, Taylor. I'm not here to arrest you. Before we talk there's one thing you need to understand. You're not at fault for what that happened today."

A joke? A lie to take me off guard? "You don't need to pretend. It was my fault. I admit it, I did it, it was me. I'm the murderer. I felt that power building up inside me and I let it out, I let it spread everywhere in the city at once, I, I'm-"

Alexandria shook her head. "It's very common to receive powers during moments of extreme stress. You were given powers that you didn't understand and you used them in desperation. A perfectly normal reaction during a so-called 'trigger event'. No reasonable witness or court of law can blame you for what you did. The fact that your power had such a destructive effect is simply an unfortunate tragedy. You're _not_ a murderer, and you're not a villain. Not if you listen to what I have to say."

"Not a murderer? Do you, did you see what the school looked like? The beach? I, I couldn't even look without getting sick. The people who I..." I swallowed. I had thought I was too exhausted to care anymore. I had been wrong. My tears were coming back again. "Do you know how many people I killed?"

"We haven't been able to count the casualties precisely, in part because the local communications infrastructure is gone - cell phone towers, computers, radios. The current estimate from our Thinkers is two to six thousand dead, thirty to one hundred thousand wounded. Spread across the full extent of Brockton Bay and the surrounding suburbs."

...oh God. I had almost managed to convince myself that it had just been the places I saw in my panicked flight from the city. The school, the docks, part of the coastline. But this...what I had done was as bad as an Endbringer.

Wait. When I used my power in the locker I had been reaching out, calling out to Dad. Did that...did that mean that...

I felt a deep pit opening in my stomach. "My Dad. Is he okay? You know my name so did you check on him too, was he hurt? I, I need to go back-"

Alexandria's expression softened and she slowly shook her head. "I'm sorry, Taylor. He didn't make it."

I didn't have any words. Somehow I had known it all along but I ran away, distracted myself, did anything to avoid facing the truth. Hearing it from her, the finality in her voice...I couldn't speak, I couldn't think. I had killed him, murdered him. There was nothing left for me. Nothing in the world.

No, that was wrong. I had one thing left. _Me_, myself. The despicable beast that had destroyed everyone I cared about. The beast that was a coward and couldn't work up the courage to finish the job.

Suddenly Alexandria was in front of me, hands on my shoulders, looking into my eyes. "Taylor. Please. I know what you're thinking. It's natural for you to feel guilt. It's natural for you to grieve. But here and now, you need to control yourself. Don't add to this tragedy."

"I, I can't take this. Don't talk to me like that, like it'll all be okay. It's _not_ okay, it's not, it's-"

"It's not okay, but believe me, Taylor, we can make things better. That's the question you need to answer now: where do we go from here?" She lowered her voice. "Taylor, listen. Listen and tell me if I'm wrong. I can tell your father was a good man-"

I sobbed.

"He was a good man who thought the best of you. He believed in you. He belived you're a fine young woman who will make her own way in the world. He believed you'll live a long and full life and make him proud. Am I right?"

I managed a nod. "But now, what I did, I-"

"If he knew that you got powers, he'd want you to use them to help people. If he knew that you suffered a tragedy, he'd want you to overcome it. Am I right?"

I nodded again.

"That's what I'm here to offer you. A second chance."

Another sick joke. "...I don't deserve a second chance."

"I understand. You feel responsible for what happened today. Think about what that means, Taylor. If you accept responsibility for the tragedy today then you have a duty to redeem yourself. To make up for the harm you caused.

"If you take your own life, or if you run away, then you'll never redeem yourself. The public will blame you for everything. They'll have me hunt you down and throw you in the Birdcage. Would you really be satisfied letting yourself be locked away? Knowing that you squandered your power, that you used it only for destruction? Knowing that when people think of your mother and father, of their legacy to the world, they'll only see a pair of parents who raised a mass murderer?

"If you come with me, I'll give you a chance for redemption. I can make the public accept you as a hero, and I believe you can be a _great_ hero. With your power you might even become as respected as our Triumvirate one day. Redemption isn't easy. It might take years, it might take decades. But one day you'll look back on your life, both the good and the bad, and you'll see that you've done good for the world. Isn't that worth living for?"

...  
...

Vantage stepped onto the roof of the Los Angeles Protectorate HQ.

"About time, Vantage. They're almost here." said Rime. She pointed to the horizon. Two small specks in the air, growing larger by the second.

Vantage squinted in the sunlight. He hadn't gotten much sleep. Two days ago he had been pulled out of school by a high-priority emergency alert. The city of Brockton Bay was under attack by an unknown force, all communications knocked offline in an instant. The threat was labeled as A-class with a high probability of escalating to S-class, given that they were almost due for an Endbringer attack.

He had spent a tense five hours cooped up in HQ with the rest of the Wards, then received a terse message that the threat was resolved and that Alexandria was staying in Brockton Bay to help with disaster relief. No details on the nature of the threat, no details on what happened. As far as information was concerned, Brockton Bay was a black hole. And then Alexandria hadn't come back the next day, or the next...

It was the uncertainty that got to him. He was the captain of the Wards, but how could he lead them if he didn't know what the hell was going on?

When Alexandria was around, everything was easy. She was invulnerable, strong enough to take on most threats single-handedly, smart enough to come up with a winning strategy against even the most esoteric powers. She didn't babysit them, she didn't tolerate weakness in her team, but her presence always gave them that extra margin of safety. If the going got tough, they knew that she would pull them out of the fire.

All too often, though, Alexandria _wasn't_ there. She was away fighting A- and S-class threats around the world. Or was in diplomatic meetings with capes from other countries, in publicity events with the Protectorate, in meetings with the Chief Director of the PRT. All in all, more than half the time they had to make do with Rime as their acting leader. She was good, very good even, but still mortal. If disaster struck here, in LA, they would have to face it alone...

This morning was a mixed blessing. Vantage had been woken up by a message that Alexandria was returning. A relief, yes, but the message _also_ said that Alexandria was bringing in a new girl, a recruit for the Wards.

Now, it was natural for people to get powers in the wake of a disaster. According to his Parahuman: Theories and Patterns course, city-wide disasters generally created five to ten new parahumans. It was natural for the new capes to change cities, too, if their homes had been destroyed in the disaster.

But transferring a new recruit to Los Angeles? Something was up with the new Ward, something that merited Alexandria's personal supervision. The new cape must be powerful, unstable, or both. Probably unstable - the odds were that the girl had suffered in the disaster, lost her home or even her family. And yet he was expected to take charge of her, to be her team captain, without knowing anything about what had happened to her or to her city. How was he supposed to support a traumatized girl if he didn't know what traumatized her?

Vantage took a deep breath and faced the source of his anxiety.

The two figures approached the HQ and landed on the roof. Alexandria was pristine as always, without any indication that she had just dealt with a national emergency. Her expression was serious as always but her lips were drawn up in a smile. Not the broad and convincingly non-fake smile she showed off for publicity events, but the faint quirk at the edge of her mouth that meant that she was truly pleased with something.

The new recruit was intimidating. A female form ten feet tall, with skin that was a mesh of jagged shards of glass of all sizes and in all colors of the rainbow. Two massive wings extended behind her. On closer inspection, they weren't attached to her body - they were stacks of dozens of metal-tipped glass spears, packed together and hovering in the air beside her. A sea of smaller glass fragments formed a halo above her head. Her most striking feature was her face. Her features were frozen in place and twisted until they were almost unrecognizable as human.

A Case 53? A Changer? No, wait. He could see the dark shadow of a human shape buried inside the glass. She must have made made the angelic construct with her power, wearing it like a suit of armor. Some form of matter creation or telekinesis.

Alexandria stepped forward. "Rime, Vantage. I'd like you to meet our newest Ward, from Brockton Bay. We haven't finalized the paperwork yet, but for the time being she's going by the name Glassworker."

"Welcome to Los Angeles. I'm Vantage, the captain of the Wards here, but you can call me Anthony." said Vantage. He extended a hand for her to shake, then immediately regretted his rehearsed greeting. The girl's glass-studded skin would tear his hand apart.

Glassworker extended her right hand, then seemed to realize the problem. With a scraping sound of glass-on-glass, the shards forming her skin rearranged themselves into a smooth surface, fitting neatly next to each other as though they were solving a jigsaw puzzle. She took his hand in hers and shook it.

"I'm Taylor. Um. Sorry about the sharp edges. I'm, I'm still working on that. Improving my control, I mean." She spoke without moving the 'face' on her costume. Her voice had an odd high-pitched ringing to it, as if it was coming from resonations in the glass around her.

The glass on her face shifted into a caricature of a smile, too big and with too many teeth. Vantage kept himself from wincing. If she the glass on her face reflected her expression, then the default form it had taken when she first landed, when she wasn't paying attention...yeah, definitely trauma there.

Rime took her hand next. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Rime, the second in command here. We'll take good care of you."

Vantage tore his gaze from the new recruit and turned to Alexandria. "Ma'am, can you fill us in on what happened in Brockton Bay?" He was sure she would say something about PRT regulations and the media blackout, so he added "It will help us support Glassworker in her move to a new city if we know the truth about her hometown."

Glassworker took a step back, seemed to shrink into herself.

"Information about Brockton Bay is confidential while we finish the investigation, but Chief Director Costa-Brown will brief the media tomorrow morning." said Alexandria. "The short story is that a local cape created a shockwave that that caused silicon materials to shatter explosively. Glass, sand, computer circuitry. The shockwave was self-reinforcing, generating new shockwaves from each piece of glass it shattered. It propagated through the city and most of the surrounding suburbs until it ran out of raw material. Casualties number more than four thousand dead and sixty thousand wounded, with the numbers expected to grow over the next week because the infrastructure for medical services and communication has been destroyed."

Holy fuck. A villain with a power so broken that a single strike was nearly as bad as an Endbringer attack.

He turned to his newest Ward. "I'm glad you made it out okay, Taylor. I hope your family-" He stopped himself. Of course she lost someone close to her, that's why she's here. "If you lost a loved one in the disaster, I'm, I'm sorry for your loss." he finished lamely.

"Yeah. I lost my dad." she said softly.

"My condolences." said Rime.

Alexandria put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Glassworker was protected by her power, but unfortunately her family was not. She has shown a great deal of courage under these trying circumstances. Just hours after losing her parents, she approached me and asked for help in becoming a hero. Her sole surviving relative is her grandmother in Phoenix, who gave consent for her to move to LA and work under my supervision.

"Glassworker will be staying in a guest room in our headquarters for the time being. I'd like you to give her your full support in this difficult time. In the long term, the PRT will arrange for her to stay with a local family, ideally one of our Protectorate or Wards. Rime, Vantage, I'd like your input. Please give me your recommendations for suitable households by the end of the day."

"Yes, Ma'am." said Vantage. "Taylor, I salute your courage. We take good care of our Wards here. If you need anything during your stay, or just someone to talk to, please don't hesitate to ask."

Glassworker nodded.

"Ma'am, please tell me that you caught the villain who was responsible." said Rime. Her voice was tight. Her own family had suffered at the hands of a villain who escaped from justice.

"We did, after a fashion. The culprit was a Tinker, a local villain named Leet. It seems that one of his-"

"Wait, Leet?" Vantage interrupted. "As in the youtube channel, Uber and Leet's Classic Gaming Showcase? Those clow-, um, I mean incompetents, actually made something dangerous? He's only rated Tinker 2."

Alexandria raised an eyebrow. "I'll have words with you later about what constitutes acceptable entertainment. Yes, it was him, although it took us a bit of detective work to pinpoint him as the cause. Leet, Uber, and their henchmen weren't available for questioning because they were all killed when the device went out of control. A review of satellite video footage showed that the shockwave originated in their lair, and Eidolon's psychometry confirmed them as the culprits. It seems that their device was a failed attempt to create a life-sized version of a classic arcade game, Breakout."

"That's...horrific." said Rime. "A child's attempt at entertainment causing an A-class disaster. We always knew this could happen, but now..." She paused. "I'm thinking that we need to crack down on the Tinkers upstate, the minor villains and the rogues who won't accept PRT supervision. We've been going under the assumption that the bit players who keep a low profile will stay out of trouble. But if this kind of disaster can be an _accident_..."

Alexandria nodded. "I agree. This is exactly why minors with powers need adult supervision. The disaster reflects poorly upon our organization, as well. The local PRT director survived, thankfully, but she has been fired for her failure to capture the villains before they became a threat. And for other failures of hers that have come to light in the aftermath of the incident." Alexandria looked at Glassworker. "There is one silver lining, however."

Glassworker shifted in place again, plainly nervous. During the discussion of the disaster her glass costume had slowly returned to its former state, smile disappearing and hands reverting to jagged edges.

"You mean the disaster has something to do with Glassworker's power?" asked Vantage.

"Yes. Trigger events often tailor a parahuman's powers to equip them to handle crises in their lives. Glassworker's trigger event protected her from the disaster by granting her the power of macrosilicakinesis - telekinetic control of glass and other silicon materials in large quantities and over long distances. Her power is effectively a mirror image of the shockwave's effect but with a superior degree of control. We're classifying her as a Shaker 10, with subratings Blaster 5, Mover 3, Brute 1, because of her ability to use glass constructs as ranged weapons, to levitate herself and others, and to form protective shields. The costume you see here is her own creation, sustained moment to moment by her power. An exercise in control."

Vantage gave a low whistle. No wonder Alexandria had taken her on as a Ward. Her ratings were the highest in the state, Alexandria excluded. And leaving her in Brockton Bay would have been a disaster. A new cape with power over glass, in a city thsat had been devastated by a glass-based weapon? The citizens there would never accept the poor girl as a hero, even if her unique power was proof positive that she was as much a victim of the disaster as they were.

He let his eyes wander to the massive, floating wings of Glassworker's costume. The girl's power was exceptionally strong and versatile. She could destroy silicon-based electronics and Tinker devices in an instant, subdue villains at a distance with glass prisons and guided missiles delivering containment foam grenades, smash through hard targets by using spears as battering rams, and control the battlefield by making barriers to protect her allies and floating platforms to carry them out of danger.

What it meant was clear enough. Alexandria was looking to the future. She saw Glassworker as a heavy hitter to be groomed for a top position in the Protectorate. But for Vantage, Glassworker was the exactly the person he had been wishing for, a balm for his anxiety. If he took good care of her, did his duty as the captain to train her in the tactics of the Wards...then when Alexandria was away, he wouldn't have to worry about a lack of firepower anymore.

Vantage stepped up to Glassworker and placed his right hand against hers, just close enough to brush against the jagged edges of her costume. She stared for a moment, and then the glass of her entire costume abruptly reshuffled itself to become smooth again.

"Sorry about that, Vantage. Um, Anthony." she said. "Like I said, I'm still working on my control, and I don't want to hurt you, so please be careful if you, um-"

"Don't worry about it." he said. "You have an impressive power, and a hell of a lot of potential. We'll help you handle it in any way you need. I'm glad to have you on my team."

He clapsed her right hand in both of his, looked into her eyes, and smiled.

"Welcome to the Wards."


	2. Tattletale 1

"Stop! Brutus, stop! Angelica, stop!"

Brutus slammed his claws into the ground, pulling us to an abrupt halt. I struggled to keep my grip on the bone spurs on the mutant dog's back. Only the fact that I fell foward into Bitch kept me from tumbling off his back onto the street. Grue and Regent, riding Angelica, fared little better.

"Damn it, Bitch. We need to keep moving!" shouted Grue.

Whatever set Bitch off must have been behind us. I was using my power to scout the path ahead, looking for escape routes, predicting where the capes would try to ambush us. Even a second of advance warning meant the difference between life and death.

This wasn't a game of cops and robbers anymore. Everything had gone to hell.

Miss Militia wasn't holding back. _Couldn't_ hold back against us, not anymore. She was promoted to lead the local Protectorate two weeks ago, after Armsmaster and Dauntless died during the Shattering, casualties of wearing helmets filled with electronics. In her promotion ceremony Miss Militia promised to honor their memory, to help the city recover from the disaster. But now her attacks were turning the city streets into a disaster area, patches of pavement melting and _boiling_ with heat, the shattered ruins of buildings collapsing in flames. In less than five minutes of chasing us she had turned a sizable chunk of the city into a wasteland.

Which meant we needed to get the hell out of here. But three blocks behind us I saw the reason Bitch stopped us. Her third dog, Judas, was hovering in mid-air. Still as a statue, frozen in mid-leap by Clockblocker's power.

The rest of the heroes stood in a half-circle around the dog, facing us with their arms raised. Triumph, Kid Win, Gallant. Ready to blast us if we tried to rescue him.

"Hey, fuck you! You said you'd leave my dogs alone!" shouted Bitch.

A tall man paced around the dog, conjuring small ceramic jars and placing them around the dog's frozen body. The Butcher. He was using one of his forty eight powers to create motion-activated explosive mines, setting up a deathtrap to kill Judas the moment the dog unfroze. He walked slowly, deliberately. Taunting us.

"Fucker! Liar! I'll fucking kill you!" Bitch's face was twisted with rage, fists clenched hard enough to draw blood. If I didn't do something she would get us all killed.

"Bitch, listen." I said. "Butcher's powers are weaker than the original, maybe too weak to hurt Judas permanently. Your dog has a chance to survive, _if_ we get out of here now, if we draw their attention away. We have to leave _now_, understand?"

Bitch didn't move a muscle. She was frozen in place, watching as the Butcher conjured another mine and handed it to Kid Win. The boy used his hoverboard to reach the dog's face, then used a blob of containment foam to stick the mine to the dog's left eye.

"Okay, I'm going to try to block her power again." said Regent. He gestured with his scepter and the air next to Butcher shimmered, revealing a middle eastern woman in an elaborate dress, her face locked in a false expression of perpetual boredom.

Puppetmaster. The member of the Slaughterhouse Nine who was behind our predicament. The one who wanted to recruit Regent into the Nine, who devised this sick 'game' to pit her power against his. She and her victims would chase us down, subjecting us to gruesome deaths one by one, only stopping if Regent used his power to force her to retreat. Puppetmaster was peering at her hands, watching Regent's power fight her own for control of her body.

* * *

&gt; Minor twitches of her thumbs and index fingers, disruption of her control over Butcher's cloaking power; takeover is eight percent complete. Takeover will be fifty percent complete after fifty four additional minutes of sustained effort.

* * *

Fifty four minutes was far too long. If this was a straight fight against Puppetmaster we wouldn't have a chance; she and her two permanent 'puppets' alone could probably beat all of the capes in the city by themselves. It was impossible to fight her at close range; her power automatically seized control of all humans in a sixteen foot radius.

Ranged attacks weren't much better, with the Butcher she kept as her bodyguard. He had weakened versions of forty eight powers, a count that grew every time the Slaughterhouse hit a new city and the Puppetmaster found new capes to feed him. That made him her trump card, protecting her with a dozen defensive powers - forcefields, healing powers, cloaking - while wielding enough offensive power to take on an army. They were backed up by Slipstream, a mass teleporter from Texas who had used his powers for fun and profit until Puppetmaster caught him last year. He gave her mobility, letting her follow us no matter where we ran and escape at a moment's notice if we put her in danger. If it came down to a serious fight, he would simply teleport her entourage on top of us to let her seize control in an instant. Worse, even if we somehow managed to pull Butcher and Slipstream out of her control radius, my power told me they wouldn't be our allies. Puppetmaster's teammate Bonesaw had implanted the pair with safety devices that would force them into unconsciousness the instant they left her control.

Just those three were bad enough, but Puppetmaster's modus operandi was to announce her presence in a city by seizing control of half of the heroes to serve as her personal army. She had crashed a battle between the Protectorate and the Empire Eighty Eight, pulling five of the heroes into her control radius. When the Empire's capes tried to attack her, she seized Cricket, Stormtiger, and Alabaster as well.

All of which meant that we couldn't afford a real fight. Our only chance to survive was to play along with her sick game, buying time for Regent to take control of her nervous system. We needed to run for as long as she was willing to play cat and mouse with us, then stall as long as possible when she caught one of us and wanted to show us a 'performance'. My powers would be critical here, dishing the info about what made the lunatic tick, figuring out what to say to buy us more time.

..._except_ that to stall for time, we would have to stay and watch her execute our teammates in grisly detail. Puppetmaster loved an audience, loved to get a reaction. She wanted us to watch as she ended our lives one by one. Wanted us to run in blind fear, to imagine the fates she had in store for us when our turns came; then to see the look in our eyes when her punishments surpassed our imagination.

If we were cold and rational, maybe we could do it. Regent could, probably, he was enough of a sociopath to watch us get tortured to death without blinking an eye. But I didn't have any illusions about the rest of us. Staying to watch would fuck with our heads, put us off balance, make us rush into danger or make stupid decisions. Hell, even Bitch's dogs - the rest of us didn't care much for them but Butcher's trap for Judas was driving Bitch berserk, and she was the one who controlled our transportation.

Bitch was shaking with anger, watching as Kid Win fixed a mine to Judas' other eye. I didn't like my odds of convincing her to treat Judas as a loss and get the hell out of here.

"Bitch, we have to-"

* * *

&gt; Judas frozen in time without a rider; dog previously had rider; team member left behind.

* * *

"Oh fuck. Imp's still back there."

"Who?" said Grue.

* * *

&gt; Imp; power to cause nearby humans to forget her existence. Has not returned to teammates, is unwilling to escape; is injured or attempting to defeat the enemy. Posture of Judas, estimated leap trajectory; unlikely to be injured. Rash, impetuous, frustrated at running; attempting to defeat the enemy.

* * *

Damn it. The idiot was going to get herself killed, and I couldn't say anything to her without warning Puppetmaster. If Butcher didn't detect Imp straight away with his ten extra senses, he would be certain to find her if he knew that something was up. I would have to stick with something vague, pretend I was talking to Puppetmaster.

"You idiot!" I shouted. "Stop whatever you're doing and fuck off!"

A gouge appeared in Puppetmaster's throat and spilled blood. She clutched at her throat and more red lines appeared on her face, her cheeks, her hands. One of her eyes tore itself apart. The wounds were appearing faster than Butcher's powers could heal them. Puppetmaster's entourage cast about wildly, blasting in random directions and trying to hit the invisible attacker.

I couldn't believe it. Imp's power was working.

"What the fuck's happening to her?" said Regent.

Puppetmaster fell to the ground, writhing in pain, face still locked in a perpetual expressionless mask. Cricket and Alabaster slashed at the air around her and Butcher unleashed a series of desperation attacks, finally resorting to an area effect that made all of the capes collapse to the ground. A wave of pain so strong that it overrode Puppetmaster's control, but it didn't have any effect on Imp.

Another deep gouge appeared in Puppetmaster's throat. Her desperate thrashing stilled and the gathered capes collapsed to the ground as one. Butcher and Slipstream sprawled on the ground, limp. The Protectorate and Empire capes jerked in place, then slowly stirred as if waking from a dream.

Imp dispelled her power, revealing herself standing above Puppetmaster, her bloody butcher's knife raised in the air triumphantly. She was much the worse for wear, bleeding from wounds all over her body, her costume torn in a dozen places from the random attacks of the puppets...but she was alive. She kicked the Puppetmaster's body and waved to us.

"Fuck yeah, Imp! That was badass!" Regent cheered.

"Holy shit, Aisha! Are you all right?" said Grue. He dismounted Angelica, ready to run to his sister's side.

Damn it. The poor fools.

"No, Grue. Don't go. It's a trap."

"What are you-"

"A _trap_ Grue. Too good to be true. Didn't you notice that none of them are talking? Regent, use your power on Puppetmaster, tell me if she's still alive."

"Well shit." said Regent.

Imp stopped waving at us and scratched her head, as though she was confused. Then the Butcher stood and clapped his hands. An illusion dispelled, revealing that Puppetmaster and Alabaster had taken each other's places. Puppetmaster stood unharmed, while Alabaster lay on the ground, his white suit stained with blood. Then Alabaster flickered and stood upright, his wounds gone.

"No." said Grue.

Imp looked at Puppetmaster, mimed throwing up her hands in shock, and slashed at her with her butcher knife. Imp's body froze in in mid-slash, knife an inch from the woman's throat. Puppetmaster looked at us and wagged an index finger back and forth. Chastising us for thinking we could hurt her. Imp turned to us and mimicked Puppetmaster's chastising gestures in eerie synchrony.

Then Imp dramatically raised the butcher knife in her other hand, and hacked off her own wagging index finger.

"Aisha!" Grue shouted, no, _screamed_ for the first time I had ever heard. He had given up on using his darkness to throw off our pursuers, but now wisps of darkness were flowing out of his costume again, coiling around his body.

Imp raised her knife again and jammed it into her palm, hard enough that it came out the other side and embedded itself in the flesh of her hand.

"Stop, let her go!" Grue called.

Puppetmaster put her hand to her chin, miming a thinking pose. Then she gestured and Imp walked forward until she stood at the edge of Puppetmaster's control range. Imp looked back and forth between us and Puppetmaster, as if considering which way she wanted to go.

Grue was about to say...fuck. "Grue, no, you can't-"

He shouted over me. "Let her go! I'll surrender, you can have me if you let her go!"

Imp bowed to us, an elaborate show filled with unnecessary genuflections. Then she made a come-hither gesture, using the hand with the knife embedded inside.

"Grue, no. If you do this they'll come back and get her again. They'll make her suffer even worse than before, just to make a fucking point. Make you two kill each other in some fucked up game."

"Don't fucking tell me I can or can't do, not on this. It's my sister, my call."

"It's not _my_ call, it's _hers_." I hissed. "I used my power. Aisha doesn't want you to do this. She knows she lost, that she made a stupid mistake and she's paying for it. Aisha wants you to survive this, Brian. Maybe get revenge on the fuckers who did this to her but keep yourself alive, okay? She wants you to let her go."

Imp tapped her foot impatiently, made the come-hither gesture again.

Grue stared at her, but he didn't move a muscle. My power told me that he was going to make the right decision, but I couldn't rush him. If I pushed him, he'd refuse to listen.

Miss Militia stepped forward next to Imp. Her rocket launcher dissolved into a green blur, then reformed into...what looked like a cross between a dozen razor blades and a cheese grater. An implement of torture. She held it out to Imp.

Imp accepted the implement with her good hand, hefted it, tested its weight. Then she pressed a button on the handle and the blades spun into a blur of motion. Imp looked at us, then slowly moved the spinning blades, speculatively positioning them above her stomach. Then above her chest, her shoulder, her arm. Choosing a target.

Grue was whispering under his breath. "No, no, no, no, no..."

Imp raised her knife hand triumphantly, miming getting an inspiration. She pulled off her mask and let it fall to the ground. Imp's face was passive, almost bored with the proceedings. No hint of what her trapped mind was thinking. She slowly raised the blur of metal blades up to her face, inch by inch.

"No, no, don't do that, no..."

"Bitch, don't make him watch this." I said. "We need to leave, _now_!"

Bitch whistled and pointed behind us, and our mounts turned and ran. Regent gestured and Imp's hand flailed, dropping the torture implement to the ground. Then we were around the corner, away from the grisly spectacle.

"That was seriously fucked up." said Regent. He didn't have any right to say that, given his own history, but none of us were in a state to object.

"Hey, Grue." I said. "Listen, Imp's probably okay for now. We'll have a chance to save her. Puppetmaster wants to make you suffer for going back on your deal, she won't do anything to hurt Imp until she knows you're watching. If we get away now, we can come back later with allies to save her."

Grue nodded stiffly, his entire body tense like a live wire. He had to know that my words were a false comfort. Damn it. We needed him as a leader, but he wouldn't be in any shape to do it unless we got Aisha back, and the odds of getting someone out of Puppetmaster's control were slim.

"Fuck, why couldn't I be recruited by one of the _friendly_ ones?" said Regent. "Crawler, maybe, or Hatchet Face. Even Siberian, the worst she'd do is eat us alive."

"Doesn't matter, they're all going to test you." said Grue. "Just keep using your power."

"I can barely do anything at this distance." said Regent.

"Keep trying unless you'd rather be on fire!" said Grue.

There was a faint clap of displaced air as Puppetmaster's menagerie teleported onto a rooftop behind us.

"Incoming!" I shouted.

The ground shook as a rain of explosives and napalm turned the street in front of us into an impassible inferno. Bitch called an order to her dogs and we changed directions, darting down an alleyway.

"Where do we go?" said Bitch.

* * *

&gt; Burst of explosions not synced with projectiles; detonation of mines around Judas.

* * *

I tactfully chose not to mention that. "She's herding us, trying to trap us. Try an open area, the beaches."

"No, that's a death warrant." said Grue. "No cover, no way to escape. Stay in the city."

"Whatever we do, we need to buy time." I said.

I pulled out my satellite phone, almost dropped it as Bitch's dog's made a sharp turn to run parallel to the coastline. I dialed Coil, using the number for his public identity as PRT Director Thomas Calvert. With the truce in effect against the Nine, it was kosher for us to publicly collaborate with the heroes.

It took me almost thirty seconds to dial the number. Learning to do everything left-handed was a bitch. But I couldn't complain. We were amazingly lucky that I was the only one of us to get a serious injury from the Shattering. Coil was going all-out for me - medical treatment, painkillers, even putting my civilian identity on the shortlist for healing by Panacea.

Unfortunately, it was looking less and less likely that I would get my fingers back. Panacea was another victim of the Shattering, a casualty of wearing fancy earbuds while watching a video on her smartphone. Until yesterday she was recovering under the care of a Protectorate healer, slowly regenerating her ears, eyes, and hands. Then she was targeted for recruitment by the Nine. Their tinkers 'treated' her by grafting bio-mechanical augmentations onto her body, supposedly to give her a fair chance in their membership tests. Panacea had a psychotic break and went MIA. Coil told us that she was a high-priority target for rescue, and I had pushed the team to help. My plan was simple - with any luck we would find her, I would bring her back to sanity, and she would regenerate my hand as a thank you gift. Then the Puppetmaster found us first.

Coil picked up on the first ring. "Tattletale here." I said. "We need backup asap. Puppetmaster's still after us and she got Imp, she's going to kill her. Any plans for a rescue would be much appreciated."

"I know. Go to the ship graveyard and don't stop until you're in the scrapheap. We're preparing an ambush." said Coil.

I relayed his instructions to our team. "What's the plan, Director? Policy S9-33 says to keep heroes away from Puppetmaster at all costs, so are you-"

* * *

&gt; Second floor cafe with view of the coastline, ideal for ambush with ranged weapons. Recharge time for Slipstream's teleportation, eighty four seconds.

* * *

"Incoming!"

It took five minutes and three rains of napalm before we made it to our destination. A long stretch of the coastline had been turned into the 'scrapheap', a dumping ground for the tons of glass fragments and broken electronics that littered the city in the aftermath of the Shattering.

"Keep going forward, into the center of the scrapheap." said Coil. "Stop in...three hundred yards."

"We'll be trapped in there, sitting ducks. Sending us in there to set up your ambush-"

"Be assured, Tattletale, I have no intention of violating the truce."

"Tell me what the fuck's going on! I can coordinate with your capes, tell them where to hit." I used my power to look for the trap, for the capes Coil was sending to help us, but I couldn't sense a thing.

"Our enemies are likely to have Thinker powers as well. I'd prefer not to tell you and give them forewarning."

Fuck him.

"What's the plan?" said Grue.

I pointed. "Calvert wants us to stop over there and wait for her to catch up."

"And then?"

"That's it. He won't tell me a thing."

"He wants us to give up? Sit here and take it?" hissed Bitch, her voice tight.

"Calvert won't break the truce, he doesn't want us to get killed. I'm eighty five percent sure." I said.

"Not exactly inspiring a lot of confidence here." said Regent.

We came to a halt in the middle of a clearing, strewn with shards of glass that crunched under the claws of our dogs. The moment we stopped, Puppetmaster and her victims appeared at the entrance to the scrap heap in a clap of displaced air. The ranged capes took aim at us, Miss Militia leveling a nasty-looking harpoon gun.

Imp stepped forward and wagged one of her intact fingers at us. She pulled the knife out of her hand with a dramatic flourish, then held it in front of her with the tip pointed at her throat. Grue watched in mute horror, his body unconsciously wreathing itself in pulsing strands of darkness.

"Any time now, Tattletale." said Regent.

Imp tilted her head to the side, then lowered her knife. Gallant blasted Imp with a beam of light, making her stagger and fall to the ground. Gallant stepped behind her and raised his hands, blasting her again and again.

"What the hell?" said Regent.

Imp started to make her way toward us, reduced to a slow crawl under the pressure of Gallant's blasts but keeping a deathgrip on her knife.

* * *

&gt; Gallant's beams are deep purple; color corresponds to effect on emotions.

* * *

Fuck. "Grue, look away. It's better if _don't look_."

"What is it? Tell me!" he demanded.

I stayed quiet. Puppetmaster didn't want to take the easy way out and simply kill Imp with her power. Instead she was using Gallant's ability to turn Imp's fear into full-on suicidal despair. The second Imp left her control radius, Grue would have to watch his sister kill herself of her own volition.

Where the hell were Coil's reinforcements? I used my power again, focused on the scrap heap around us.

* * *

&gt; Arrangement of debris in the clearing; artificial, orderly. Repeated motif of twenty two glass shards clustered around a broken smartphone; concealed weapons deployed throughout clearing.

* * *

Then it happened. A metric ton of the glass shards around us came to life, condensing around Puppetmaster, Butcher, and Slipstream and encasing them in jagged spheres of glass, each made of dozens of spinning serrated saw blades. At the same time containment foam exploded from the ground around her victims and glued them in place. The spiked spheres lifted in the air and floated in opposite directions, pulling Puppetmaster away from her victims and freeing them from her control.

...or _should_ have freed them, I assumed, if the ambush went as planned. Before Puppetmaster was pulled out of range, though, the glass spheres abruptly stopped moving and began flaking apart piece by piece. Slipstream was dead, his broken body falling to the ground, but Butcher and Puppetmaster were unharmed. Butcher was using a dozen powers at once - shielding Puppetmaster, anchoring the two of them in space, and whatever defensive power was he was using to disrupt the glass.

Whoever was controlling the glass changed strategies, letting the spheres collapse and shaping debris from the scrapheap into scores of ten foot long spears, hurling them at the Butcher at high speeds. The spears flew at fifty miles an hour, but they fell apart as they approached the Butcher and each impact barely pushed him back an inch.

I raised my voice to be heard over the sound of smashing glass. "We're losing. Bitch, lets get out of here."

Bitch glared at me. "She killed Judas. I'll fucking kill her. Get off my dog."

Bitch jumped to the ground, then reached up and yanked me off Brutus' back. I fell, bracing myself with my good hand.

"_Listen_ to me, Bitch. We can't help in this fight!"

The containment foam around Miss Milita abruptly dissolved in a puff of blue mist. She pulled a canister from her belt and tossed it into the center of the clearing, where it released a steady flow of mist that began dissolving the foam around the other victims.

Miss Militia formed her power into a massive missile launcher, aiming it to arc over the piles of scrap and hit a target a half mile away. Fuck. The Butcher's senses must have found the ambushing cape. A wave of glass flew through the air to jam her weapon, but it lost its cohesion as it approached the Butcher. Regent used his power, forcing Miss Militia's hand to seize, but Kid Win and Stormtiger were breaking free of their containment foam and readied powers to assist her.

* * *

&gt; Pattern of glass movements in time and space; glass attacks are being disrupted by one of Puppetmaster's victims. Pattern of disruption in time and space; effect coming from the back row of victims, the Empire capes. Trajectory of Miss Militia's canister toss was precise, calculated; aimed to leave disruptive cape covered in foam for protection. Cricket.

* * *

"Take out Cricket! Cricket's the one stopping the glass! Back row, foamed up to her shoulders!" I shouted as loud as I could, hoping that our allied capes would hear me.

A vast, dark shape hurtled through the air and hit Cricket head-on, crushing her body to a pulp. I blinked. Where Cricket had stood there was a rusty metal I-beam embedded in the ground, thrown from above at high speed. I looked up and caught a glimpse of a dark blur in the sky, flying to the ship graveyard to collect more ammunition.

* * *

&gt; Dark costume, flight, strength, speed; Alexandria.

* * *

I grinned for the first time since the start of our chase. There was hope after all. Coil hadn't skimped on our reinforcements.

Freed of Cricket's disruptive effect, the glass re-formed into spheres around Puppetmaster and Butcher. Puppetmaster was still protected by layers of forcefields, but a handful of glass shards had made their way inside and were tearing at her body. There was tug of war, the glass lifting Puppetmaster and Butcher higher and higher in the air and pulling them apart, while Butcher used powers to protect Puppetmaster, to stay inside her control radius, and to lash out at their attackers. The capes on the ground thrashed, torn between conflicting desires as they were pulled in and out of her control radius. Grue covered the capes on the ground with a blanket of darkness, to make it harder for Puppetmaster to use them to attack us.

Alexandria returned to the battlefield, carrying the rusting hulk of a small boat piled high with a stack of metal debris. She threw a steady stream of metal chunks at Butcher, each strike pushing him another few feet away from Puppetmaster. A fusillade of glass spears flew in from afar to add to the effort, tipped with explosives that hit the Butcher with concussive force. Butcher resisted the attacks with an endless array of defenses - flight, intertia-dampening, force reflection, aerokinesis, short-range teleportation.

Then Bitch yelled a command and Brutus and Angelica leaped into the air, biting onto Butcher's legs and attaching four tons of weight to his body. He abruptly fell ten feet, nearing the edge of Puppetmaster's control radius. Alexandria joined in as though it had been a rehearsed maneuver, hitting Butcher with a rapid series of thrown projectiles to finish the job.

The moment Butcher left Puppetmaster's control radius, the fight was over. Butcher went limp, his forcefields went down, and the glass sphere around Puppetmaster compressed with a crunch. The sphere then re-shaped itself into a whirling cloud of shards that cut through her like a buzzsaw, tearing her to shreds in a matter of seconds. The victims regained control of themselves with an outpouring of emotion, most of them collapsing to the ground, sobbing or screaming or laughing in relief.

Regent whooped and slapped Bitch on the back. "Thatta girl, Bitch!" She flinched but didn't push him away. She was staring at the shreds that had been Puppetmaster, a dark look of satisfaction on her face.

Grue turned to me stiffly, clenching and unclenching his fists. I didn't need my power to imagine his expression. I gave him weak smile. "No trap this time. You can go get her, she'll be fine." He ran to Imp's side. She needed him. She was prone and half buried in containment foam, sobbing with tears running down her cheeks.

I left Grue and Imp to their reunion and turned my attention to the heroes. With Grue preoccupied with his sister it was up to me to handle the diplomacy. I took a deep breath, took a moment to get my bearings and see the big picture.

Yeah, we were fucked. There were still seven members of the Slaughterhouse in the city, each one of them planning to come after Regent with more of their tests. We killed one of their members, so they would come after us with a vengeance. If they found out that Alexandria was here, breaking the rules of their 'game', they would stop holding back and enact one of their infamous 'punishments' on the city. And even if we beat them, we had one of the Triumvirate breathing down our throats. Coil might arrange to have me killed if he thought I would give away his secrets to the Protectorate.

But that was the future. Here and now, I could almost enjoy myself. We survived, the bad guy was dead, and now I got to use my power on one of the Triumvirate. The world famous heroine, the selfless savior of humanity...with her political pull and whitewashed reputation, I couldn't wait to find out what skeletons she had in her closet. I grinned, and stepped forward to greet Alexandria.


	3. Tattletale 2

Alexandria was talking quietly to Miss Militia, a hand on her shoulder. The leader of the Brockton Bay Protectorate had none of her trademark calm demeanor. She was shaking, shivering, tears in her eyes. Her power was changing forms so frantically that it was little more than a green blur hovering around her body. Finally it settled on the form of a small hunting knife, which she clutched in her right hand in a white-knuckled grip. Alexandria said something softly and embraced Miss Militia in a hug. After a moment they separated and by then Miss Militia seemed to have pulled herself together. They exchanged a few brief words, and Miss Militia nodded, wiped her eyes, and went to comfort her Wards. She wasn't in much better shape than the rest of Puppetmaster's victims, really - the blind leading the blind.

Which meant I would be dealing with Alexandria. One of the most decorated heroes in the world, who could crush me to a pulp in less than a second and had a Thinker rating of her own. Intimidating as hell, but there was no way I was going to let it show. I managed to paste a grin on my face and approached her with a swagger in my step.

"Alexandria, it's a pleasure to work with you. It's about time Director Calvert brought in the heavy hitters. I'm-"

"Tattletale. Yes, I know. Thinker seven, member of the Undersiders. I have a job for you, in your capacity as a cape who joined the truce against the Nine. An assessment of threat levels."

Alexandria looked to where Brutus and Angelica were using the unconscious Butcher as a chew toy, their attempts to maul him painfully ineffective in the face of his nineteen defensive powers.

"Ah, you want my expertise to know how long Butcher will stay out of it? Bonesaw's implant is keeping him down but he's got at least six unconscious powers for regeneration, plus powers with secondary perks that reject foriegn matter from his body and mess with bioelectric fields. Add in the way Bonesaw treated Butcher, like he was a spoiled child who demanded attention, and her implant's got to need constant maintenance. I've got it pegged at...two or three days, tops, before he wakes up. Plenty of time to find a way to off him permanently."

Alexandria nodded. "That concurs with my own estimate. But you misunderstand, Tattletale. I'm not asking when Butcher will wake. I'm asking whether he will pose a threat when he does."

I blinked. A mass murderer with forty eight powers was pretty much the definition of a threat.

"The original Butcher was a villain," continued Alexandria. "but the present Butcher has a mind with forty eight personalities. Approximately twenty villains and twenty eight heroes. Heroes outnumber the villains. And most of the villains were forced into the collective against their will by Puppetmaster, and will be grateful to us for setting them free from her control. There is a good chance that this Butcher will choose to be more heroic than his predecessors."

* * *

&gt; Tone, confidence; actually fucking serious.

* * *

"You're nuts." I said. "What there's a _good chance_ of is Butcher going fucking crazy from having forty eight voices in his head and going on a rampage. We can't contain him. He's got at least five powers for teleportation, the only reason he didn't use them against us was that Puppetmaster wanted to keep him in her control radius."

"Regardless, I'd like your professional opinion."

"I was just a wee bit preoccupied with the control freak psycho trying to kill us, I couldn't spare time to scan the hive mind psycho she was using as a tool. But in my _professional_ opinion, we should throw him in a vat of acid and be done with it."

Alexandria looked up at the sky behind me, and I turned to see three of her teammates arrive. Two of them were women I remembered from my forays into the PRT database. Rime, ability to manipulate ice. Arbiter, minor offensive and defensive powers and a social danger sense. They were wearing gas masks, probably as a precaution against biological warfare.

The most striking one was new. A ten foot tall angel made of glass shards in a rainbow of colors, complete with wings and a halo, and carrying a six foot wide ball of melted glass in her hands. The angel landed beside Alexandria and set down the ball of glass, then lowered her teammates to the ground on floating glass platforms. She must have been the one who took the lead in attacking Puppetmaster.

* * *

&gt; Posture, pattern of light refraction through body; angel costume is generated by power, normal human body underneath, female.

* * *

"Excellent work once again, Glassworker." said Alexandria, putting an arm around the woman in a brief half-hug.

"Thank you, Ma'am." said the woman. Her voice was strange, resonating like vibrating glass. "Are...are we going to have to kill him, too?"

* * *

&gt; Uncharacteristic physical contact from Alexandria; Glassworker has need for affiliative contact, lacks affiliative contact from family, lacks supportive family. Voice, posture; anxious, inexperienced, feels unworthy of being thanked. Inexperienced, feels unworthy of thanks for killing a villain; first time killing a villain, first day fighting a villain, first day encountering a villain.

* * *

Alexandria brought a rookie cape across the country to fight monsters like the Nine? Her power was strong, sure, but pitting a rookie against the Nine was asking for disaster. Imp was proof enough of that.

Alexandria shook her head. "No, we won't kill him. I'll take Butcher to a secure detention facility and schedule a full psychological evaluation."

* * *

&gt; Confident she can contain him; access to better facilities than listed in PRT records, access to facilities kept secret from the government, holding parahumans prisoner against orders of the government.

* * *

There was some of the dirt I was looking for. This was big. Time to push harder.

"You _can't_ hold him, I've seen the specs, the only facility that will do the job is the Birdcage." I said. "He'll escape and the last thing he'll remember is chasing us down. Odds are he'll come after us. You're violating the truce here, putting our lives at risk to spare a villain who has a kill order."

"You underestimate our facilities, and our therapists." said Alexandria. "Regardless, the Butcher never received a kill order. Kill-on-sight was only authorized because he was under Puppetmaster's control. We will take him into custody." She returned my gaze levelly. "If Butcher escapes then you may rest assured that we heroes will defend you with our lives, as we do for all high-class threats."

That smug, pretentious bitch.

* * *

&gt; Glassworker reacted to 'therapists'; currently under therapy, mandatory therapy as condition for joining team. Mandatory therapy; psychologically unstable, risk of harm to self and others.

* * *

Correction: that smug, pretentious bitch who brought an overpowered, psychologically unstable rookie to fight the Nine. If Jack or Bonesaw got their hands on her...

"If your concerns have been addressed, Tattletale," continued Alexandria, "I have another job for you. Regarding the threat from the remaining members of the Nine."

I folded my arms. I didn't like her, but I didn't have much choice. She was our best bet for getting rid of the Nine.

"Ah, so you need my expertise to know who to go after next. That's easy enough. Bonesaw and Panacea. If Bonesaw finds out that you're in town with your team, she's liable to spread a contagious disease as punishment for your interference. Panacea is our best bet for a cure."

Alexandria tapped the large ball of melted glass that Glassworker had brought with her. "Neutralizing Bonesaw is not a concern. Neutralizing her biowarfare agents is. Do you have any indication that Bonesaw has already released a plague in this city, particularly one that other members can activate after her death?"

I couldn't suppress my smile. They took out Bonesaw, too? For once we had heroes who lived up to their name.

"No, no plagues. I'm maybe...ninety percent sure on this. I used my power to check when the Nine visited us to explain the rules of their 'game'. She definitely has agents in her body she can release whenever she wants, but I don't think she set up anything that elaborate in advance."

Regent came up behind me, a lighthearted tone in his voice. "So you guys caught the enfante terrible? Awesome. Leave it to our heroes to save the day. The kid's still alive in there, you know."

Alexandria nodded. "Yes, capturing her alive was intentional. If she already released a disease, we would have the option to force her cooperation in finding a cure." Regent scoffed at that, but Alexandria ignored him. "Now that we have confirmation from a third Thinker on the lack of a biowarfare threat, we are free to dispose of the criminal. Excuse me for a moment."

Alexandria picked up the Butcher in one hand and the ball of melted glass in the other. Then she flew straight upward at high speed, shrinking to a speck and disappearing among the clouds.

Regent laughed. "What's she doing, throwing them into space?"

Rime gave him an odd look. "No. She's taking them to a secure facility for containment and disposal of A-class biological hazards. Space disposal is a last resort for A-class threats, to minimize the risk of interference by the Simurgh."

"Right, right. Good point." I said. "Glassworker, is it? That's an impressive power you have. Really saved our skins."

"Thank you." said the woman. Actually, underneath the odd vibrations, her voice sounded more like a teenage girl than an adult. A Ward? I hadn't seen her in my database searches, so she must have joined after the Shattering. Bringing a rookie Ward to fight the Nine...there was a story I was missing. Why was she here?

"I'm surprised you guys made the trip to Brockton Bay. I would have expected Legend's team to come from New York. Shorter trip, you know." I said.

"Um..." the girl started.

* * *

&gt; Knows reason, wants to hide it.

* * *

"We...we're heroes, so we want to protect people, wherever they are." said Glassworker. "That's our responsibility for having this power. And...and..." she searched for words "...and so all of you villains, I don't understand you at all. You're helping us today but you're hurting people the rest of the time. Why can't you be heroes? You got these amazing powers and you got to have a _choice_ to use them for good or evil, so why are you choosing to be the bad guys? I would never choose that, I'd rather die. You saw how that Puppetmaster villain ended up, do you really want to be like that-"

* * *

&gt; Tone, 'Evil', 'Choice'; traumatic experience with powers, traumatic experience with villain, rationalization through black and white morality. 'Evil', 'I'd rather die'; traumatic experience with villain, contemplated suicide.

* * *

"Whoa, whoa, whoa." I said. "There's villains and there's _villains_. We're not monsters like the Nine. We don't kill, we don't go after anyone unless they mess with us. We're in it for the fun and the money, a harmless game of cops and robbers. You saw us today. When push comes to shove, we pitch in for S-class threats just like the heroes do."

"Um...um...well, if you help against scary guys like the Nine, why don't you help against the small threats when it's easier? I don't understand. Maybe you're not a bad person, or you don't _think_ you're a bad person, but you shouldn't use powers to hurt people, not even if they hurt you first. That would...um, that doesn't end well. If you're worried about fun and money then, um, I bet there are lots of legal ways you could use your power to have fun and make money."

Glassworker's face reshaped into an approximation of a smile. "You know what, you should go to the PRT and talk to Director Calvert." she continued. "I met him today. He's very smart and he cares a lot for his team. Maybe you did some things in the past that were, um, pretty bad, but...I'm sure if you had a change of heart, if you talked it out with him, he would give you a second chance."

Good god. It took a superhuman effort of will to hold back my laughter. Such a naive, idealistic misconception of how the system worked. I mentally sorted through a dozen ways to tear apart her youthful enthusiasm for maximum effect - cutting quips, harsh lectures, Socratic inquisitions.

As I readied my verbal demolition, though, I realized that switching sides to become a hero...might not be half bad. I considered the idea, getting a yelp from Regent as I stomped his foot to forestall his inevitable smart-alec commentary.

It was actually a valid option for us to walk into the PRT Director's office and ask him to make us heroes. Calvert was _already_ our boss in his secret identity as Coil, so it was just a matter of whether we were more useful to him as heroes or villains. And now, after the turmoil of the Shattering forced him to rearrange his plans, he might actually be open to the idea.

I knew the broad outlines of Coil's plan to seize control of the local parahumans. He would take over the PRT directorship to control the heroes, while using his contacts in the underworld to destroy the villains. The Shattering advanced his plans months ahead of schedule, giving him the PRT directorship on a silver platter.

According to his original schedule our next job was to take a dive. We would pretend to be defeated by the PRT and flee the city. This would boost his reputation as a PRT director and would let him relocate us to other cities to spread his influence throughout the state.

But now that I pondered it...it would be an even bigger boost to his reputation as a PRT director if he managed a miracle by 'converting' our team of minor villains into major heroes, courageously protecting the city in the face of the twin crises of the Shattering and the Nine. And frankly, while most of us liked the villain lifestyle, we weren't so attached to it that we would be eager to relocate to another city. Grue and Imp wanted a stable family life, Bitch wanted to be left alone with her dogs, Regent wanted an easy life of leisure. And I would much rather serve as Mission Control in the PRT headquarters than risk my life as a villain in an unfamiliar city...

"Glassworker, you don't have to engage with them." said Arbiter. "And please remember that you don't have the authority to make promises on behalf of the PRT."

"R, right. Yes, Ma'am."

Arbiter turned to Regent. "You're the one with a bodyjacking power like Puppetmaster's. Regent, Master seven."

"That's me. Don't worry, I don't do _performances_ like her. My Renassance Faire outfit is just a coincidence."

Arbiter sniffed. "I suggest you consider a career change. People in this city won't forget that monster's atrocities. They'll be wary of your power. When they catch you they won't treat you lightly."

Regent took on a thoughtful pose, tapping his scepter against his chin. "Hmm, you're right. A change of location would do me a world of good. I hear LA is nice and sunny this time of year."

"Tsk, tsk, Regent. No baiting the heroes." I said.

Arbiter turned to Rime. "It's nearly sunset. I think we're done here."

Rime nodded. "Right. I see Alexandria coming now."

* * *

&gt; Non sequitur from Arbiter, 'It's nearly sunset'; coded signal, a code for reporting her danger sense. Doesn't want us to know her report; sensed danger from us. Danger sense works through social ties, Arbiter directed conversation to get Regent talking; she's using Regent's responses to sense danger from me. Considers me a threat; vulnerability is a secret they want to hide. Considers me a threat, cut off conversation with Glassworker; afraid Glassworker would give away secrets, secrets a rookie has clearance to know, secrets about the rookie's personal information, secrets about-

* * *

Alexandria returned, a dark blur diving from the sky to land next to her team. "Two down, six to go. I estimate we have less than twenty minutes before the Nine notice their missing members and group together for protection. That gives us time to catch one more target alone and unaware. We'll use the same maneuver as before, split into two teams in the air. Rime, Arbiter, Glassworker, you're together scouting the East side of the city. Glassworker, gather as much ammunition as you can carry from the scrapheap and fly with your teammates in defensive formation. I'm scouting the West side. If you find one of the Nine, do not engage until the other team arrives as backup."

Alexandria paused and regarded Puppetmaster's victims. The Empire capes had already left, Stormtiger and Alabaster picking up whatever personal effects they could find on Cricket's corpse and slinking back into the city. Miss Milita and the other government heroes stood clustered together, trying to present a brave face to their superior.

"Miss Milita, you and your people have suffered a great deal in your twelve hours of captivity. I won't ask any of you to accompany us on this mission, not until you have time to recover."

"Yes, Ma'am. Thank you." said Miss Militia. It looked like Triumph was going to raise an objection, but Miss Militia stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

"Good. Sending you back to headquarters on foot would be asking for trouble. There's an abandoned boat near the entrance to the scrapheap. Get on board and I'll fly you to headquarters before I start my search."

Alexandria turned to me. "Tattletale, will you join me? Given that the Nine have selected one of your members for testing, I'm sure you can appreciate the opportunity to gather information on their movements. If we find one of the Nine, I'll drop you off a safe distance away before I join the fight."

I folded my arms. "My priority is my team, not beating the Nine. I'm not going anywhere without them."

"I can arrange for your team to be accommodated at the Protectorate headquarters during the operation, safer than anywhere else in the city."

I called out to the team. "Hey, Undersiders. Are you guys okay with this? Staying at Hotel Protectorate while I get chauffeured through the sky to find the Nine?"

"Taking it easy for a while? I don't see anyone objecting." said Regent.

He was right. They were a shadow of their normal selves. Grue and Imp were sitting next to each other, silently sharing each others company. Bitch was with her two remaining dogs, a lost look in her eyes. Regent, the target of the Nine's attentions, was the only one who looked halfway normal.

"Looks like we have a deal." I said.

"Good. Undersiders, join the heroes in the boat near the scrapyard entrance. I'll fly you to headquarters momentarily." Alexandria turned to her team. "Lets go."

"Yes, Ma'am." said Rime.

The glass shards of the scrapheap came to life, condensing into hundreds of spears, then stacking the spears on top of each other to add more and more mass to the 'wings' of her costume. A smaller set of glass swirled at our feet and formed into two floating platforms for Rime and Arbiter.

"You know the way?" said Rime.

"Yes, Ma'am. I'll start us off on the coastline going from the market to south ferry station, okay?" said Glassworker.

Rime nodded, and the three prepared for take off.

* * *

&gt; Glassworker's tone; familiar with local landmarks. Familiar with local landmarks, feels need to protect the city; was resident of Brockton Bay. Accent, age; spent most of life in city, raised in the city. Rookie cape, recruited in last two weeks; triggered since Shattering. Power over glass, mental trauma, loss of family; triggered during Shattering.

* * *

My eyes widened. I let go of my filters, let my power go full blast.

* * *

&gt; Triggered during Shattering. Wants to protect city but recruited to LA team; has reasons to stay away from the city. Mental trauma from a villainous use of parahuman powers, absence of reported villain attacks before Shattering; mental trauma is from her own trigger event, from villainous use of her own powers during Shattering. Long range manipulation of glass matches Shattering. Power disrupted by Cricket; 'Cricket' suggests chirping, sound vibrations, vibrations like resonance of Glassworker's voice; power is transmitted by sound, matches Coil's report of ultrasonic signal detected by PRT monitors just prior to the Shattering. Non-standard finish on Arbiter's PRT issue smartphone indicates protection against ultrasonic signals; Glassworker's power affects silicon in electronics, matches Shattering. Glassworker caused the Shattering.

* * *

Holy fuck. The stuttering schoolgirl 'hero' less than twenty feet away from me was a mass murderer who rivaled the Nine. My bad hand twitched, a phantom pain from the fingers that weren't there. The fingers this girl had taken from me.

* * *

&gt; Glassworker caused the Shattering. Accidental use of power during trigger event, loss of family, mental trauma, suicidal impulses, obligation to protect-

* * *

A movement at my side. Alexandria was studying me, a neutral expression on her face.

* * *

&gt; Alexandria. Mid-level Thinker, reaction speed during conversation; reads micro-expressions. Knows I found out Glassworker's involvement in the Shattering; knows the truth about the Shattering, PRT account is a cover story. Cover story corroborated by Eidolon and imagery from Dragon's satellites; conspiracy by Triumvirate and Dragon to cover up the truth about the Shattering, conspiracy to recruit Glassworker as a hero. Alexandria covering up the truth about mass murder; is willing to take extreme measures to maintain cover up, has access to a secret parahuman containment facility, is about to take me on a solo flight away from my team; I'm _fucked_.

* * *

I paused.

I took a deep breath.

I forced myself to grin.

"Hey, Glassworker," I called out.

The girl turned to face me, hovering in mid air.

"You know, I may call myself a villain, but it's inspiring to see heroes like you come all the way across the country to clean up our fair city. Our teams worked so well together, too. Maybe it's a sign that we're meant to be fighting on the same side.

"I'm thinking that I'll take your advice and ask Director Calvert if the PRT is willing to make a deal with a villain who has a change of heart. Who wants to make up for her dastardly deeds and start a new life as a hero. Everyone deserves a second chance, right?"

With a scraping of glass-on-glass, the girl's face rearranged itself into a broad smile.


End file.
